Outrunning the Ocean

“I don’t know, doc. I just feel like they're still on me. You see? You know she and I met in college? I told you that story? We didn’t exactly hit it off, but hey, when you’re as awkward as me and as guarded as her, it’s a wonder we even remembered each other’s names! But those orbs! Those two, beautiful orbs! They haunt me, even when I haven’t seen her in so long. Sure, I feel that twang in my chest, that liquid cool like a bucket of water cascading down on me . . . she was beautiful in so many ways! I hung onto every word, gasped at every touch . . . but those orbs!” I fell back onto the red pleather couch, tracing the plastic cloth-covered buttons patterning its face with one finger and admiring my performance. 

Dr. Mariana Dimitri simply shook his head, leaning back into his recliner and rubbing his eyes, clearly exasperated. “You know, Mr. James, you’ve been rambling for a long while now and you have yet to tell me what those orbs even are.”

I smiled up at the ceiling, loving every moment of his attention, feeling special at the center of his whole professional world. “You’re a great psychiatrist, doc, so I hoped you had figured me out by now.” 

He let out a comically long sigh. “You have such an eye for drama, don’t you, Mr. James?” The telltale scratch of pen to page accompanied his every word. It was obvious that he’d found a psychic clue and was furiously recording his observations. 

I placed my hand to my chest, reaching toward an imaginary sky with the other, and proposed, “Oh–my dear doctor! How do you know me so? To be stripped bare of all personality by such an egregious, righteous man! I feel so violated!”

“Are you making fun of me, Mr. James?”

“I absolutely am.” I said plainly, dropping my facade in an instant, returning to a sense of sanity and norm. “It’s not like you can help me anyways, doc. The only thing that’ll help me forget her is a grande escape. She’s in every detail! The blue of your pen, the ink so watery and smooth as it glides across your notepad. The glass of water beside you, so cool and refreshing. She’s all around me and there’s nothing to do but run.”

“Do you think running will solve your problems?” Dr. Dimitri inquired. 

“No. Obviously not . . . but it’s better to try and fail than to never try at all.”

“Hmm. I wish you would’ve taken that approach in college, perhaps then I could have spent each morning peacefully for the last two weeks rather than whatever nonsense fits your fancy the day of.” He tapped his watch, counting off the seconds as he eagerly waited for nine o’clock, AM. I was his first client of the day, scheduled for eight to nine, and I could tell he was losing patience with me. I didn’t blame him, though, having lost patience with myself long ago. 

“Me too, doc. Me too.”

 The clock chimed nine and began a flurry of commotion as I was ushered out of the office by a remarkably beautiful girl with dirty brown hair and dazzling blue eyes, quickly finding myself in the parking lot of Dr. Dimitri’s practice. The car was unlocked, myself not caring if it was stolen during my session, and cranked on the first try. A red suitcase sat in the back seat, filled with enough clothes to last a week before needing a fresh wash. Beside it sat a red folded tent and red cooler containing snacks and drinks for one hell of a road trip.

This vacation may have ulterior motives, but it was long overdue. I pulled out of the office parking lot and began a quick hop-and-a-skip to the interstate, merging without looking and flooring my little blue Nissan until it hit ninety, then one hundred, then ninety again as I decided it was too early to die. Where I was heading, nobody knew, including me, but I found myself heading north toward the mountains. My older sister lived up there, somewhere in the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina. She’d provide me a solid meal and a place to sleep if I wished, but I didn’t intend to stay long. Besides, beyond her farmstead lay nothing but open road and the unknown–and that mystery could bring me anything from peace to problem. 

The world flew by my window as I sped recklessly north, pushing the limits of my already distressed psyche, but enjoying an intense life-or-death distraction from the world of blue outside. Briefly, I imagined the brake lights of vehicles in front of me turning blue. They were staring at me like little . . . little . . . 

Orbs.

Shaking my head, I found solace in the trees. They seemed to merge and blend into a slurry that contained every shade of green, yellow, brown, and red imaginable. It was as if the entirety of autumn had died on the roadside, rotted, filled with gasses, then exploded onto my window, coating it in colors resembling the kind of painting toddlers are praised for. 

If God had a fridge, scenes like this would cover it. 

Three hours passed as the sun rose high above, coating the world around me in bright white and yellow, filling the air with the lingering heat of an autumn noon. Beneath me the road began a steady incline with massive hazy-blue shadows looming just ahead. 

I caught myself staring, uncontrollably, at the blue, blurry monoliths. I knew they were called the Blue Mountains . . . but I had never known why. 

And today was a hell of a day to learn. 

Wiping tears from view, I locked my gaze to the road before me, ignoring the shivering presence of the blue waiting just ahead. It was as if the ocean had stood on two legs and begun a journey across land, only to become tired and lay down across my path. Or perhaps God had designed this part of the world to contain every color of his palette, all of creation crowding into the world ahead. 

In a way, I loved it more than life itself. The artist in me whined to take pictures and paint with unskilled hands. In another, I loathed it more than death itself. Memories begging to turn back and return to a place where color was more plain, less impactful, less her. 

Regardless, I drove on. Arriving at my sister’s home uninvited, without warning, but still warmly welcomed. Her kids played at our feet as we took a seat at the kitchen table. 

“What brings you up this way, James? Haven’t heard from you in a while. Everything okay?” My sister was only slightly older than I, but the wisdom of a mother was already evident in the way she spoke. Tentatively, gently, like someone trying to get a deer to eat from their hands. 

“I’m doing fine, been fine too.”

“How’s the writing going? Publish anything yet?”

I shook my head. “No. And I’d rather not think about it.”

“That’s fair.” She watched my eyes, which were glued to the blue of her kitchen table. I couldn't tear them away, try as I might, even as she asked, “You sure you’re okay? You don’t look okay.”

Finally pulling my gaze away from the table, I wiped a tear away. 

She nodded, needing nothing more to understand. “Ah. Your muse causing problems again?”

“That’s all she ever causes! Ever since college–I can’t shake the feeling that we’re cursed. That I’m cursed!” I exploded. 

“Oh, shut up, James. You’re not cursed, you’re just stupid and overdramatic.” She chuckled, taking a sip from a half-cold cup of coffee. “You need to get out of your head and into reality for a while.”

“But I can’t!” I began to whimper, like a dog without a bone. My niece watched me like I was a wild animal, I waved her away. “It’s like she haunts me . . . those big blue orbs of hers!”

My sister chuckled, clearly mocking my pain. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?” Pausing to take another sip of afternoon coffee, she added, “You should know by now that calling eyes orbs is weird as can be. But, then again, you’ve always been like that.”

I smiled halfheartedly. “Yeah, I like being different.”

“Different is putting it politely.”

We laughed together, spending the day baking in the harsh sunlight that guarded the valley below. The sky above shone with a baby blue not unlike that seen in a nursery. The mountains beneath them hummed with humid heat, a shimmering swath of darker blue. Wildflowers of red, purple, yellow, and more blue danced with a breeze that cut through the valley, adding life to an already poetic view. 

I inhaled deeply, lost in thought. Other people require mushrooms to feel just a hint of the way that I did sitting on the front porch of my sister’s rundown farmhouse, watching the kids play in the fields of flowers, nestled safely like bird’s eggs amidst looming mountains. 

“James?”

“Yes?” I responded, having lost myself in the silence of the mountains. 

“You look like you’ve lost something.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Something important.”

“Mhm.”

We sat in silence for a while. The sun dipped below the blueridge zenith, casting large beams of yellow and red out from behind its top. The whole scene reminded me of the mane of a lion. I wondered if the sky could eat antelope. 

“I worry about you, sometimes, James. Mom does too.” She took a long drag from a menthol cigarette. I enjoyed the smell. 

“I worry about me too, but there’s not much to be done. I just need to . . . to get away for a while. That’s why I’m taking this trip.”

One of the kids ran up to my sister, asking for a Caprisun. She directed them inside, then leaned back in her rocker, extending her toes until she nearly faced the ceiling. 

“Never have kids, James.” She said. 

“Never planned to.” I leaned back with her, wondering what was so intriguing about the porch’s plywood ceiling. 

“Parenting isn’t easy.”

I exhaled loudly. “Obviously.” 

She waited for me to continue, I did not. “I often want to run away . . . Since the kids’ dad died, it’s been tough. But I don’t run, instead, I find a nice place to relax and destress. Want to know where?”

I sighed. “I figure you’ll tell me regardless.”

Leaning forward, my sister pointed west. “Down the road a ways, past the turnoff, there’s a steep incline with a series of switchbacks so sharp you’ll feel your car can’t possibly climb them–but it can! I go up there, sometimes, to the Blue Ridge Parkway. It’s a long trek of road that zigs and zags across the top of the entire mountain range.”

“Mhm.” I hummed, my eyes hooked on a particularly scuffed part of the ceiling. A little wooden fan fixed to a center beam shuddered with the effort of moving. 

“You should go up there tonight. Watch the moon and stars. I’ve seen some of the most amazing things up there, James! It’s worth any amount of effort.”

“I suppose I have nothing to lose.” I responded, denying the effort of contemplation, content with the idea of being surrounded by blacks and yellows rather than the haunting blue of the valley. 

“Good!” She clapped, shifting and standing suddenly. “I’ll make you a sandwich for dinner!” My stomach grumbled with gratitude as she scrambled inside. 

Before long I had a wrapped ham sandwich and better directions to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I bid farewell to my sister, deciding that I’d camp the night there, and left just as shadow encased her home. 

It was a short journey to the place she’d spoken of, the switchbacks every bit as foreboding as her warning, but I quickly found a semicircle of gravel to park. It overlooked a sea of swirling abyss that was only occasionally broken by the twinkling of lanterns and streetlights. They were so small, like itty bitty bugs, from my perch, and I felt insignificant compared to the blanketed sky.  

I pitched my tent next to a sign that read “WARNING: NO OVERNIGHT CAMPING.” Another sign containing a bear sat beneath it. Ignoring them both, I scavenged some dry wood and lit a small fire on the edge of the overlook. Beyond an uncomfortably small wooden fence, no more than a foot above the ground, was a straight drop to the bottom of the ridge. The chasm was impossibly deep, starlight barely penetrating the inky blackness within. It made me queasy to look at, like something was looking back at me. 

It was on this ledge that I chose to sit and stargaze, my feet hanging precariously off, dangling helplessly in a place that I could barely see. The full moon painted large strokes of pleasant gray across the night sky, giving the occasional cloud an eerie contrast to the stars that twinkled lightyears away. The whole picture reminded me of a very famous starry night. 

Far off, mountains stood sentry against the rest of the world, creating expansive walls that reached lovingly out to the moon. They formed the dead lips of a bowl around the valley, a bowl that filled quickly with a darkness so thick that it seemed almost palpable. I wondered what the void felt like as I swung my legs against the ledge, falling ever deeper into thought. Beneath me, the occasional house, the scattered city, shone in little orbs throughout the valley.

Above me was the unfathomable expanse of space, dark and true, dead but full of light and color. The bed of the valley held man made stars, standing proudly against a pool of nothingness that collected at the feet of great blue mountains. 

As I watched the stars, it seemed that one reached down and touched the black lake beneath me, falling just beyond the confines of this great bowl. 

“What a beautiful night . . .” I breathed, content by the beauty of it all. It surprised me how colors so simple could paint something so complex. I wished that my words were similar. 

What was I here to forget? I wondered. Thoughts drifting back to the eyes of someone more beautiful than the full expanse of nature and space. I dwelled there, mind’s eye thoroughly fixed on her even as my real eyes dwelled on the night sky. As I fell to her once again, the stars turned to an inky navy blue, the moon now casting off-shades of gray, the valley far below filling with sloshing water. 

“Am I going insane?” I managed to say as the water lapped at my feet. I figured the answer was yes, unfortunately, as the constellations took on the form of a beautiful, curved figure and began twirling against the baby blue canvas that was my new night sky. 

Something dug at my neck as this ocean of love, horror, confidence, and uncertainty encased me. Grasping at my chest, I found my still beating heart beneath a metallic lump. I pulled it out, holding a heart-shaped pendant in the palm of a shaky hand. The silver caught the moon’s glow, reflecting in such a way that the pendant appeared blue. 

I remembered buying this pendant for her and I. She had a matching one somewhere, probably hidden in a forgotten drawer or in a landfill somewhere. It was a cheesy gift, but I’d die for that smile on her face and the little sparkles in her eye. 

It opened as I pried unused hinges apart and . . .

There she was. 

Once again. 

Like she had never left. 

A smile that twisted in cool grace, upward to a crinkled brow, early wrinkles outlining where that same expression had been practiced so many times before. Her skin was red like a rose, a blush in full bloom. Perhaps I had said something charming just before the camera snapped–perhaps it was just my presence–but the memory was lost to me. Her nose was smooth and cute, her lipstick a deep red. There were so many details to take in, so many pleasant little lines and crosses, but . . .

But her eyes. 

They were blue like the deepest parts of the Pacific ocean. With little whirlpools of lighter blue and green swirling outward from her pupils, forming arcs like sun prominences in mid-summer. I waded into those pools, those oceans, of hers. Getting lost in something so much deeper than myself–getting lost in her. 

Surely, I could never love someone so deeply twice in a lifetime. Even God would not afford that mercy.

“Oh . . . “ I mumbled as liquid beads pooled and slid down the glass of the pendant. They fell like raindrops onto my lap. “You’ve hurt me, my little ocean . . .” I whispered to myself. “It doesn’t matter where I go, what colors I find . . . you keep coming back to me.” 

A bright light filled the sky as a star fell. I made a wish and closed the pendant. 

“It doesn’t matter how long you run from the ocean, does it? If you’re still at the beach . . .” And with that last statement, my heart melted even as tears filled my eyes and overflowed out, over the ledge . . . I tossed my last memory of her, my darling ocean, into the abyssal sea inside the mountain valley. Waiting for a crash, the telltale clang of metal on rock, I found nothing but the rush of blood in my ears and a steady, desperate pounding in my chest. 

A black blanket overtook the sky, yellow dots appearing as a seamstress poked holes into its fabric, they then cut a large hole and placed the moon there. Laying back, I felt the warmth of the fire and its gentle crackle as sparks shot out every-which-way.

“I think I’ll go home tomorrow.” I said.